Want Viagra? Too bad

A bill has been introduced to Kentucky’s legislature that requires men to bring written permission from their wives before obtaining a prescription for Viagra or Cialis.

The bill was proposed in response to a recently passed law that would restrict women’s access to abortions in the state.

According to an article by The Courier-Journal on Feb. 16, Mary Lou Marzian, the person who wrote the bill, admited that it is unlikely to be passed. Marzian said the bill’s true purpose is not actually to restrict men’s access to medication.

The bill aims to make people consider what the government’s role is when it comes to intervening in personal
medical decisions.

Basia Maciejewski, who is working on her masters of medicinal sciences and doctor of medicine degree at the University of Calgary, said she believes Kentucky’s recent anti-abortion laws are overly invasive.

“The government is meant to protect us from one another, not to protect us from ourselves,” she said.

Proponents of the anti-abortion law argue that because abortions can be traumatic experiences for some, the law protects women’s rights to emotional safety and health.

“If they were really interested in safety, they would look into how many unregulated abortions go on in areas where access to [medically safe] abortions are restricted. They should be involving themselves in education initiatives instead of making it difficult for people to access certain medical facilities, assuming that they are safe for patients,” said Maciejewski.

A 2012 survey by Postmedia News and Global TV, which 2,110 Canadians participated in, showed that 49 per cent of Canadians believed a woman should have unrestricted access to abortions, while only six per cent said that access to abortions should be completely restricted. The remaining 45 per cent of Canadians surveyed fell somewhere in the middle.

While there is an overwhelming trend towards support for abortions, what this truly signals is that there is a huge margin for interpretation on this issue.

It seems inconsistent, not to mention sexist, to assume that women are incapable of making this decision without the guiding hand of the government.

Compare this with the law which was introduced in California on June 30, 2015, that prohibited parents from opting their children out of vaccinations on the grounds of personal belief.

The bill was prompted by an outbreak at Disneyland, in which 113 people were infected with measles.

The reasoning was that due to their infectious nature, diseases and illnesses could threaten those around you.

Primarily, the concern was that people who intentionally opt out of vaccinations threaten society’s “herd immunity,” and can cause significant risk to people who have weakened immune systems and those who are medically unable to receive vaccinations.

Many consider the slaughter of animals for meat or fur immoral, but parliament would never propose to restrict Canadians’ access to animal products, nor should they.

We trust that those Canadians who look down on meat consumption to voluntarily become vegetarians. We trust one another to make these decisions for ourselves, even though we sometimes disagree.

What these restrictive laws amount to then, are one group of people enforcing their subjective views on another
group of people.